The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Ref. The Jazz Theory Book (Mark Levine)

    To follow the tune samples (G/F-clef) in the book, it would be very helpful to hear these samples, but searching the web for audio files does not lead to success.

    Please, who else is working with this book and has any additional resources?

    Thank you in advance!

    --Hy

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Buy a keyboard?

    Or notation software?

    (I know that might mean $$, but IMO being able to play the chords yourself whenever you want is the ideal solution.)
    Last edited by JonR; 05-31-2014 at 11:52 AM.

  4. #3
    ...Thanks for your tip, but playing guitar is my obsession, additional playing keyboard would overcharge me, in particular its my my age (>50) which does not allow to learn a second instrument;-)

    By the way, I have asked Mr. Levine himself and he remarked that the copyrights of the composers and publishers are to be regarded. For this audio samples (exactly as written in the book) are not available!

    In my opinion someone on this planet should have already transcribed the tunes, if not, I will start this job by using Sibelius - Jon, or anyone else, who will join this project??

    Best regards, Hy

  5. #4

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    Well, I would use Sibelius myself to do it, so I wouldn't be doing anything you couldn't do! .

    I do think it's a good project.
    Personally I wouldn't take the copyright issue too seriously. I understand Levine has to promote the letter of the law.
    I don't know how copyright affects improvisations, which is the issue here (Levine doesn't quote compositions, as far as I remember). Technically I guess they're the property of whoever played them, but I'd like to know if there's ever been any court cases determining it one way or the other. I find it hard to believe that any jazz musician is going to pursue copyright over a couple of bars of an improvisation he played 30 or 40 years ago (or more). Players steal licks all the time, it's part of the culture. Of course, you would credit the original player, if you did make your audio samples public.
    As for the various single piano chords illustrated, they can't possibly be copyright!

    I do understand the objection to paying for a keyboard, but you don't need to learn to play it; only what the notes are, so you can form the chords that you can't play on guitar.

    I've known many jazz musicians over the last 40 years (I mean real ones as opposed to the amateur that I am), and one thing I can say is - whatever their main instrument - they all (every one) know their way around a piano too. Not all of them can play the thing (to any performance standard), but they know enough to work out chords. None of them would regard knowing piano as any inhibition on their main instrument, quite the contrary.
    Piano is simply the musical workbench (for any serious classical or jazz musician, and for most composers in pop too), a resource with every possible note laid out before you. No technique whatsoever is required to play a note, or even to play a chord. You just plonk your fingers down on whatever notes you need.
    (Of course, pianos themselves are outrageously expensive! But midi keyboards can be had quite cheap. You don't get every note with anything less than an 88-note keyboard, but if you only need it for chords, 3 octaves is enough, and even 2 would do at a pinch.)

  6. #5

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    jazz and copyright
    Attached Images Attached Images

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by randalljazz
    jazz and copyright
    Thanks - interesting stuff.

  8. #7

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    Pushing 60, this keyboard player began guitar at 55. You're never too old to learn something new. Learning keyboard is a piece of cake compared to the study of guitar.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
    Pushing 60, this keyboard player began guitar at 55. You're never too old to learn something new. Learning keyboard is a piece of cake compared to the study of guitar.
    Yup. I learned piano two years ago (took two semesters of classical piano) and I'm 35 years old.

  10. #9

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    Hi guys, I've just finished studying the book and transcribing ALL the figures of the Book for sibelius! Each chapter has been transcribed to a different sib file. I've uploaded the rar file and some charts that I made based on the Book on zippyshare.

    link ; Zippyshare.com - Sibelius - The Jazz Theory Book Figures.rar
    Attached Images Attached Images Levine Jazz Theory Book - Audio Samples?-preview-jpg 

  11. #10
    Hi Martin

    I never had expected that anybody will do this hard job!

    Thanks so much!

    --Hy

  12. #11

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    Excellent resource!

  13. #12

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    martin125,
    As someone who just recently bought the book, I agree with JonR, an incredibly useful thing to have done: more power to your elbow. I managed to download the files and, as I do not have Sibelius, I asked a friend to open them with his copy but he couldn't (possibly an old version?). I was going to get him to convert them to midi files. I wondered if it was possible that you could make the stuff available as midi files? I don't know enough about Sibelius to know if that is a big ask or could be done easily.
    jc

  14. #13

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    @JellyLaird

    It could be useful, if each figure was a separate sibelius file. However, considering that each chapter has been transcribed to a different sibelius file, midi files would be useless, because each chapter consists of a lot of figures. For instance, the first chapter lasts almost 6 mins. So you would end up with a 6 mins midi file. If not impossible, it would be extremely tiresome and annoying for you to try and find each figure. If you're still up to it, I can send you the midi files.

    P.S. Don't ask me to turn each figure into a separate sibelius file. I counted the figures of the first ten chapters. There are 447 figures.

  15. #14

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    Martin125, many thanks for the reply. It would be grand if you could send the chapter midi files as still have not managed to open the sib files. I have software that would show the music staff for the midi so should be possible to work out where the breaks between examples occur by matching to the book. Really appreciate it and yes I can why creating separate midi files per example is not on!

  16. #15

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    Many thanks!

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Broyale
    Yup. I learned piano two years ago (took two semesters of classical piano) and I'm 35 years old.
    I learned to program Midi Tracks /Songs at about 40 a while back and of course everything including Drums/ Percussion etc is done on Keyboard Workstation...but I said to myself I am NOT going to learn to play Keys or woodshed Keys at all ...! And I love that I suck at Keys....
    I may have to put together another Rig for writing again...and I still won't learn...Guitar is enough for me.
    Last edited by Robertkoa; 02-12-2016 at 08:58 PM.

  18. #17

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    Does anyone have a copy of the figures in midi or audio? The zippyshare did not give me access to the rar file. I kept getting redirected into sites attempting to install flash on my Mac.

  19. #18

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    I would say don't bother, you're not missing out. But I'm pretty much anti the Levine theory book.

    Piano would help. It's a piano centric book. There are others oriented towards the guitar. If you don't have time to deal with keys, maybe one of those would be better.

  20. #19

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    I figured out what the secret handshake is with zippy share. The first attempt at downloading the link results in 3rd party random crap-ware. When you get a .exe on a Mac its kind of sad. The ones after that give up the goods. Thanks Martin.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I would say don't bother, you're not missing out. But I'm pretty much anti the Levine theory book.

    Piano would help. It's a piano centric book. There are others oriented towards the guitar. If you don't have time to deal with keys, maybe one of those would be better.

    Hi there,

    Not sure I catch your drift. As a relatively new jazz enthousiast I am using Levine's book to build some foundation for further study. I frequent this forum and clearly you are way above my level of playing.

    I did notice I started pounding the piano more often since working on this book, particularly in hearing the examples provided. To be honest I never thought of this as a bad thing since I figured developing the jazz ear and intellect would be fundamental, and instrument-specific knowledge would build from that.

    Would you suggest basic jazz feeling/hearing is best drawn from another source or are you perhaps referring to developing guitar chops specifically? I feel that at this stage any knowledge is good knowledge but what do I know.


    BTW I am very much indebted to the instruction videos you post so hats off to that.

    Kind regards,
    J-meister
    Last edited by J-meister; 01-26-2017 at 01:11 PM. Reason: include quote

  22. #21

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    Hi, I'm studying from Levine jazz book and trying to download the figures of the Book for sibelius (very useful) but the link doesn't work for me... so there is anyone that can share the file?

    Thanks in advance.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by gioverkill
    Hi, I'm studying from Levine jazz book and trying to download the figures of the Book for sibelius (very useful) but the link doesn't work for me... so there is anyone that can share the file?

    Thanks in advance.
    a few popups will open but if you go back to the page and keep trying the download button it will work. I think I had to try about five times

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by martin125
    Hi guys, I've just finished studying the book and transcribing ALL the figures of the Book for sibelius! Each chapter has been transcribed to a different sib file. I've uploaded the rar file and some charts that I made based on the Book on zippyshare.

    link ; Zippyshare.com - Sibelius - The Jazz Theory Book Figures.rar
    Thank you so much - this is really helpful

  25. #24

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    7-Zip will open rar files.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by martin125
    Hi guys, I've just finished studying the book and transcribing ALL the figures of the Book for sibelius! Each chapter has been transcribed to a different sib file. I've uploaded the rar file and some charts that I made based on the Book on zippyshare.

    link ; Zippyshare.com - Sibelius - The Jazz Theory Book Figures.rar
    Hi! Would you mind uploading these again? Thanks.